Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Module 4 Reflection

Wikis

http://theroadtorevolution.wikispaces.com/5.+Boston+Tea+Party
     I recently wrote a lesson plan on the Boston Tea Party which I hope to teach to my 5th grade class this semester.  This wiki would be a great resource to use in conjunction with my lesson.  I would consider this to be an “online lesson enhancement” for the lesson that I currently have (Roblyer and Doering, 2013, p. 238).

     The second wiki that I am posting is one that has a lot of resources for widgets http://cooltoolsforschools.wikispaces.com/widgets .  This is an example of “electronic publishing” that Robyler and Doering (2013) discuss (p. 239).  For example, the author of this wiki has published his compilation of resources.

Widgets
     Both of these widgets act as "support for student research" (Roblyer and Doering, 2013, p. 242).

     This widget looks pulls up information about the presidents when you type in their names. It would also be very useful on a social studies wiki, especially when studying the presidents or simply major events in the USA.

     This widget looks up the flags for each country. It would be beneficial especially when studying diversity and multiculturalism. I could see this being particularly useful with a social studies wiki as well.

Web-Based Lesson

http://education.nationalgeographic.com/education/lesson/?ar_a=1

    As a teacher, I could use to this website to find a lot of web-based lessons.  This website has a lot of lesson plans that are what Roblyer and Doering (2013) defined in their textbook, "individual lesson plans.  The majority of online educational resources are individual lesson plans that teachers download and integrate within their classroom, often without adaptation" (p. 238).  We could access this site as a class or individually.  Either way, these are great examples of web-based lessons.

     In addition this webpage offers a lot of links to websites that have web-based lessons: http://www.education.com/reference/article/sites-web-based-lessons-projects/ . It might be useful to you!


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Thursday, October 3, 2013

Module 3 Reflection



URLS
     URLS are special addresses that tell the web exactly where to take you.  The URL can tell us many things about the website we are trying to view: the protocol, the domain name, the folder it is in, and even the specific file.  

Search engines
     Learning how to use search engines can help students be able to find great resources more easily.  When they know how to search for specific things, the quality of the hits will be better.  This link is to a kid-friendly tutorial about using search engines: it teaches the basics!
http://www.kidzworld.com/article/1900-search-engine-tutorial

Internet tool
     One internet tool that I was recently introduced to was Spotify.  It is an online social music website which can be found at www.spotify.com.  A teacher could create a playlist for their classroom to use whenever they have internet access.  Just like they talked about in our Globe training, you could use educational songs to teach concepts.  One artist to search on Spotify is Having Fun Teaching who produces a lot of catchy educational songs.

Web-based lesson
     Recently all of us became Globe certified, which is exactly why I chose www.globe.gov to be my example.    Basically this website has a lot of stellar resources for teacher and activities for students.  Plus, it’s free!

Favorite websites
     Obviously, one of my favorite teacher websites is www.pinterest.com.  Pinterest is a social pinboard-style bookmarking site.  This website fulfills Roblyer and Doering’s (2013) definition of a social networking site which, “focus[es] on building communities of individually designed web pages” (p. 225).  The authors also talk about having “connected friends or supporters” (p.225) who are actually called followers on Pinterest.  Lastly, the authors say that in social networking sites, one can “share media and interests in an online, easy-to-use website environment” (p. 225) which is one attribute of Pinterest.  In conclusion, Pinterest if the perfect social networking tool to use as an educator!

     My next favorite website that I will use as a teacher (if it isn’t blocked by the school system) is www.youtube.com.  Youtube has various videos that would be beneficial as an educator.  There are things from educational songs to documentaries that are free to watch online.  As an educator, I could even “upload video and photo files for online sharing” (Roblyer and Doering, 2013, p. 225) with my students and parents.  I could also tag my videos for “increased searchability” (Roblyer and Doering, 2013, p. 225).  Lastly, I could use the “easy-to-use tools” (Roblyer and Doering, 2013, p. 225) that Youtube offers to make and edit videos for my students.  This would be the perfect website to use for any flipped lessons.
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